FirstNet Authority pursuing new CEO, Band 14 buildout, spectrum-license renewal

FirstNet Authority board members received updated information about key initiatives for the organization, including the search for a new CEO, the buildout of 700 MHz Band 14 LTE coverage by contractor AT&T, and the FCC’s pending decision about renewing the license for the Band 14 spectrum.

FirstNet Authority Acting CEO Lisa Casias said that the online posting for the CEO job—a position Casias has stated she will not pursue—closed on Oct. 24, and that “we’re firmly in the next stage of the recruitment process” to fill the top job on the organization’s staff. However, Casias did not provide a timeline for a new CEO to be selected.

“It’s a top priority for the board and for the department,” Casias said during today’s meeting of the FirstNet Authority board. “While the process will move as quickly as we can to fill the position, we do intend to be thorough in the search and will not sacrifice quality for the speed.

“I do want to thank everyone who has expressed interest in the position. We’re really encouraged by the number and the quality of applications, and we’ll be providing more information as the process moves forward. Based on what people hear about our mission, it’s a fantastic place to work, so I’m not surprised at the very high interest in the position.”

Casias also announced that AT&T—the FirstNet Authority’s contractor to build and maintain the nationwide public-safety broadband network (NPSBN)—is “on track” to finish the initial five-year buildout of the network early next year.

Early this year, AT&T filed with the SEC that it hoped to finish the contracted FirstNet Band 14 buildout by the end of this year. However, completing this massive task early next year will meet AT&T’s contractual timeline, which calls for deployment completion by the end of March 2023.

Meanwhile, the FirstNet Authority is still awaiting a formal decision from the FCC about its spectrum license for the 20 MHz of 700 MHz Band 14 airwaves, according to Casias.

“The FirstNet Authority filed in August and the proceeding remains pending before the FCC,” Casias said.

In November 2012, the FCC—following the direction of Congress—granted the FirstNet Authority license to operate a public-safety LTE system on Band 14 spectrum for a 10-year period. The FirstNet Authority asked the FCC to renew the license via a filing submitted to the agency in August.

Although the FirstNet Authority’s 10-year spectrum-license period for Band 14 reached its end earlier this week, the FirstNet Authority’s timely submission of license-renewal paperwork means that it can continue to utilize the spectrum as the FCC completes its license-renewal process, according to industry sources.

With a nationwide system that provides more than 4 million connections to more than 23,000 public-safety agencies, there is little question that the FCC ultimately will renew the FirstNet Authority’s Band 14 license. However, the proceeding has attracted comments from an AT&T competitor and public-safety associations outlining new conditions they would like the FCC to attach to a license renewal.

Notably, both the National Sheriffs Association (NSA) and the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) asked for greater transparency about the relationship between the FirstNet Authority and AT&T. To date, the FirstNet Authority and AT&T have not broadly released the details of their 25-year contract, although certain items—for example, the target end date of the initial 5-year buildout—have been shared.

AT&T officials have shared specific deployment plans with government and public-safety officials for a particularly geographic area, although the officials typically have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to be given the buildout information, according to sources.

NSA’s filing also stated that “AT&T and FirstNet have refused to support full interoperability with other networks serving public safety” and asked that the FCC address the issue via the license-renewal process. This interoperability request was echoed by AT&T’s cellular rival T-Mobile, which claimed that FirstNet “has not fulfilled all of its promises” in its filing to the FCC.

In contrast, both the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) expressed broad support for the FCC renewing the FirstNet Authority’s license to operate on the 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum. NPSTC’s filing acknowledged the transparency and interoperability issues raised by NSA and MCCA, but it recommended that the FCC consider doing so “outside the renewal process.”

Under the 2012 law that created FirstNet, Congress tasked the FCC with establishing a short-term board to explore interoperability—an entity that has been dissolved—and licensing the Band 14 airwaves to the FirstNet Authority. While the FCC has clear authority to renew the Band 14 spectrum license, some legal sources have questioned whether the FCC is empowered to attach the requested transparency and interoperability conditions to a license renewal, if it chose to do so. Outside of the spectrum-license process, the FirstNet Authority—by law, an “independent authority” within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)—has had little interaction with the FCC during the past decade.

Potentially complicating matters further is the FirstNet Authority’s long-term contract with AT&T, which was signed in March 2017. It is unclear whether this agreement would be impacted by a change in the existing levels of transparency or interoperability, because the 25-year contract has not been shared publicly.